Patrick O'Brian - Desolation island

"I have not," said Stephen. "I cannot mend a severed spinal cord. The man was as dead as a rabbit before ever they picked him up."

They looked at him in silence; he was clearly upset, and they had very rarely seen him upset, rarely moved beyond a certain peevishness - certainly not for a couple of civilians, who (though nobody chose to say so at this time,

with the men unburied) were as disagreeable a pair of scrubs as they had set eyes upon. They could not tell that his whole person was shrieking for its usual dose, but they did know that he was in need of something, and having no more than kindness, coffee, toast, and orange marmalade, they offered these, together with tobacco. None of these things satisfied the specific craving, but the combination did have a soothing effect, and when Pullings said,, "Oh, sir, I was forgetting: while we were rousing their surgeon out of the hold, we found a stowaway," Stephen cried, "A stowaway in a man-of-war? I never heard of such a thing," looking keen and attentive. There were a great many things in a man-of-war that Dr Maturin had never heard of, but he had of late made some groping attempts at learning the difference between a slab-line and a selvagee - had been heard to say, not without complacency, "I am become tolerably amphibious' - and this pleased them. They agreed heartily: a stowaway was most uncommon, indeed unheard of; and with a bow to Stephen Jack said, "Before we tackle the ugly business in the forepeak, let us have this - this rara avis in mara, maro, in."

The stowaway, a slight young man, was led aft by a Marine sergeant, holding him up rather than holding him in. He was very pale where the dirt and a week-old heard did not obscure his skin: dressed in a shirt and a torn pair of breeches. He made a leg, and said, "Good morning, sir."

"Don't speak to the Captain," cried the sergeant, in a sergeant's voice, shaking him by the elbow and then hauling him up as he fell.

"Sergeant," said Jack, "set him on the locker there, and then you may go. Now, sir, what is your name?"

"Herapath, sir: Michael Herapath, at your service."

"Well, Mr Herapath, and what do you mean by concealing yourself aboard this ship?"

Here the Leopard gave a tee-lurch, and the sea, a light green now, swept up beyond the scuttle with sickening deliberation: Herapath turned greener still, clapped his

hand to his mouth to stifle a dry, vain retching; and between the spasms that shook his whole frame he brought out the words, "I beg pardon, sir. I beg pardon. I am not quite well."

"Killick," called Jack. "Stow this man in a hammock on the orlop."

Killick, a wiry, ape-like creature, picked Herapath up with no apparent effort and carried him bodily away, saying, "Mind your 'ed on the door-lamb, mate."

"I have seen him before,"said Pullings. "lie came aboard just after the convicts were sent down, and wanted to join. Well, I saw he was no seaman - he said as much himself - so I told him we had no room for landsmen, and turned him away - advised him to list for a soldier."

At that time it was true that the Leopard had no landsmen on her books apart from those in her original draft. A captain of Jack Aubrey's reputation, a taut captain, even a tartar at times, but a fair one and no flogger, and above all a lucky one in the article of prize-money, had no great difficulty in manning his ship: that is to say, no great difficulty in bringing the meagre draft up to its full complement by volunteers, so long as the news had time to circulate. He had only to print a few handbills, set up rendezvous in suitable public houses, and the Leopard's crew was complete. Men who had sailed with him before, prime seamen who by means known to themselves alone had eluded the pressgangs and the crimps, turned up grinning, often bringing a couple of friends, and expecting their names and former ratings to be remembered - rarely expecting in vain. His only difficulty with this crew of man-of-war's men, in which even the waisters could hand, reef and steer, was preserving it from the port admiral. He succeeded up to the very last day, when the port-admiral, receiving orders to send out the Dolphin instantly, whatever the cost, stripped the Leopard of one hundred seamen, replacing them by sixty-four objects from the receiving-ship, quota-men,

and people who preferred the sea to a county gaol.

"And then, sir," continued Pullings, "seeing he looked so very down, I told him it would never answer, an educated man on the lower deck - he would never stand the labour, his hands would be flayed in no time at all, he would be started and cobbed by the bosun's mates, might even be brought to the gangway and flogged, and he would never get along kindly with his messmates. But no, he longed to go to sea, he said, and would prove very willing. So I gave him a chit to Warner, of Eurydice, who is a hundred and twenty hands short, and he thanked me very civil indeed."

Stephen had also seen the young man. He was nearing the Parade Coffee House when Herapath spoke to him, asked him the way, asked him the time, and was very earnest to enter into conversation; but Stephen was a cautious soul; many people had been set upon him before this, some in even stranger form, and although the approach was almost certainly too pitifully naive to be anything in that line, he did not choose to go into the matter, above all in his present state of apathy. He bade Herapath good day, and walked into the coffee-house. He did not mention this now, however, partly because of his secretive nature, and partly because he was thinking about Mrs Wogan, whom he had not yet seen. He attached no great importance to her, and there was time and to spare in a voyage that might last nine months; but even so, it was worth taking care. Had Diana mentioned his name to her? His entire approach would depend on that.

Jack drained his last cup and said, "We had best get under way."

They came out into the brilliant daylight of the quarterdeck, the sun well up on the larboard quarter, high white clouds moving in a steady procession north-westwards across a pale blue sky, the washed air sparkling and transparent, a strong but even swell, the waves themselves a deep perfection. The Leopard had recovered from her battering with the most surprising speed: she was close-

hauled on the larboard tack, and she was making a good seven knots, not, perhaps, with the lithe grace of a well-trimmed frigate - the image of a playful cart-horse crossed Stephen's mind - but with a creditable gait in a two-decker. Her topgallantmasts were still on deck; the bosun had a party out on the head, busy with the bowsprit and getting uncommonly wet as they passed the gammoning-turns; and there were a good many forecastle hands creeping about like great net-bearing spiders, repairing the damaged rigging; yet from her general clean, trim, orderly appearance, no landsman and few sailors would have believed that she had emerged, not five hours since, from as nasty a blow as the Bay could provide.

Jack took this in with a quick, professional glance; but then his brow clouded. Two midshipmen were leaning on the rail, gazing at the remote hint of Finisterre dark on the horizon as the ship lifted to the swell. Young gentlemen were not encouraged to lean on the rail in any ship commanded by Captain Aubrey. "Mr Wetherby," he said, "Mr Sommers: if you wish to view the geography of Spain, you will find the masthead a more convenient place, a more extensive vista. You will take a spy-glass with you, if you please. Mr Grant, the other young gentleman will join the bosun on the bowsprit."

The battens and tarpaulins had already been taken from the hatches, and Jack walke ' d forward along the gangway, down the forecastle ladder and so to the main hatchway; then, adjuring Stephen to 'clap on to the rail, there', for the sea was still running high and skittish, he plunged below, turning quick at the bottom of the ladder, just in time to see Stephen hanging by his coat tails, suspended in Pullings's powerful grasp, and extending his limbs like a tortoise. "You really must learn to clap on, Doctor," he said, receiving him in his arms and setting him down on the lower deck. "We cannot have you breaking your neck too. Come now, one hand for yourself and one for the ship.' Aft along the shadowy lower deck, with its massive